Machine for separating wool fibres or other filaments



A. BOER Feb. 16, 1960 MACHINE FOR SEPARATING WOOL FIBRES 0R OTHER FILAMENTS Filed April 27, 1955 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTOR. 494. ?ou.

nited States Patent C MACHINE FOR SEPARAT-ING WOOL FIBRES OR OTHER FILAMENTS Arpad Boer, Buenos Aires, Argentina, assignor, by mesne assignments, to Bancroft-Brillotex International S.A., Montevideo, Uruguay, a corporation of Uruguay Application April 27, 1955, Serial No. 504,320 1 claim. (c1. 19;-131) The present invention relates to a machine for' drafting wool and other bers and more particularly to a machine having a series of pairs of endless belts arranged linearly to form a treatment path for the bers and operating at successively higher speeds over rolls on which they are mounted and by which they are driven, said endless belts being provided with spaced raised strip-like sections with intermediate grooves and said raised sections diminishing in Width in succeeding belts to provide a decreasing size gradient in the direction of travel of the bers through the machine.

The machine of the present invention has advantages over other machines for the present purposes in that it is simple and effective and produces unusually good results without permitting felting of the bers and representing more than a mere mechanization of operations previously carried out manually, in which latter connection the bers can be subdivided by the machine to an extent not possible manually due to the size `of the ngers.

For example, there are two ways of separating the bers of sheared fleece. One way is to separate the bers by lateral movements and the other is to thin them out. The former gives rise to felting of the bers and the latter cannot provide the desired extent of subdividing.

The new machine, however, is very effective in thinning out and separating the bers and in progressively processing the bers by successively diminishing activev belt areas to obtain maximum subdivision amounting to substantially a total separation of the bers which are discharged from the machine practically as individual parallel bers. These results are obtained by a special belt construction in combination with an increasing speed gradient of successive belts and the provision of successively narrower active raised sections on the series of belts, as hereinafter more fullydescribed. These raised sections extend in the direction of ber movement and are provided on either one or both of the belts of each pair of belts.

In the accompanying drawings:

Fig. 1 is a front elevational view, with parts broken away, of a machine embodying the invention;

Fig. 2 is a prole view of Fig. l showing, by means of increasing directional arrow lengths, the progressively higher speeds of successive pairs of belts;

Fig. 3 is a plan view of Fig. l showing the use of one belt with raised sections and one smooth surfaced belt;

Fig. 4 is a plan view similar to Fig. l of a modified form of the invention wherein both belts of each pair are provided with raised sections; and

Fig. 5 is a schematic view showing diagrammatically the progressive thinning out and subdividing of the bers as carried out by the machine.

Referring now to the drawings in detail, the machine comprises a plurality of pairs of endless belts b.b mounted on and driven by rolls 3, 4 whose axes 1, 2, respectively, are journalled in longitudinal side frames a. The belts are stretched over the sets of rolls to provide the desired tensioning of the belts in a manner well understood. MeansA of any suitable or conventional V ice nature is provided for driving the rolls, 'and hence the belts, in such manner that each succeeding pair of belts travels over its rolls at a higher rate of speed than the preceding pair of belts from the entrance end of the machine to the discharge end, as indicated by the progressively longer directional arrows in Fig. 2. At the entrance end of the machine, there is a pair of feed rolls cec, also journalled in frames a, which receive and grip the bers 5 and pass them to the rst pair of endless belts b-b'. These rolls c--c operate at a slower rotational speed than the rolls of the first pair of belts.

The pairs of belts b--b and the rolls c-c are arranged in a linear series to form a treatment path or channel and portions of the belts are parallel as will be seen in Fig. 2. There is thus formed an increasing speed gradient along the machine.

At least one belt of each pair is provided on its active surface across its width with spaced raised strip-like sections 7 which extend in the direction of travel of the fibers 5 and which alternate with grooves 8. In the form of the invention shown in Figs. 1-3, only one belt of each pair is so configured, the other belt of the pair being smooth, whereas in the modied form of the invention shown in Fig. 4 both belts of each pair are provided with the raised sections and the raised sections of one such belt coincide with the raised -sections of the other belt to provide gripping surfaces for the fibers. The grooves also have some but much less gripping effect and provide a retarded impellance of the bers as compared to the action of the raised sections.

As will be clear from Fig. 1, the raised sections and grooves of each succeeeding belt or pair of belts are of less width than the raised sections and grooves of each preceding belt or pair of belts, thus providing a decreasing size gradient with respect to the width of the raised sections and grooves in the direction of the discharge end of the machine. This arrangement in combination with the increasing speed gradient provides a unique machine capable of effectively bringing about the processing of the bers according to the invention.

Operation The operation of the machine will be understood from the construction thereof taken with the diagrammatic showing of Fig, 5.

Wool, hair or other bers such as shorn fleece are fed into the machine in such manner that the bers are approximately parallel to their direction of travel through the machine. This is eiected by rolls c-c operating at minimum speed which pass the bers to the first pair of endless belts b-b, either or both of which are provided with the raised sections and grooves above described, which grip the bers and pass them between succeeding pairs of belts, each passage being at a higher 'speed than the previous one. Drafting and subdividing of the bers occurs progressively and in proportion to the increasing speed gradient and the decreasing width of the raised sections and grooves. The portions of the bers acted on by the raised sections advance more rapidly than those portions acted on by the grooves which exert a reduced impellance and a dragging action as compared to the raised belt sections. Passage of the bers from one pair of belts to the next until the last pair of belts acts on the bers produces the drafting, thinning and subdividing of the bers which are discharged from the machine practically as separate individual parallel laments. The action may also be considered as debering.

It is to be understood that the foregoing is intended as illustrative and not as limitative since various modifications may be made in the details of construction without departing from the invention as dened by the appended claim.

3 '-I claim:

A machine for drafting wool -and other fibers, comprising a seriesfof pairs of r endless belts the belts ofveach pair being face to face and the pairs of belts being ar- -ranged zlinearly to form a 'treatment ypath `from `the `entrance `end fof the machine constituted by Vthe =irst of -such lpairs lof ibelts -to the exit end of themachine constituted by the last of such pairs of belts, said endless belts being mounted on and driven by rolls vmounted in bearings, the `active Louter surfaces'of at -least one of the belts -ofleach -pair being provided across their width with a plurality of spaced raised strip-like sections .with intermediate grooves, the yraised sections and groovesfextending ein the `direction 'of iberjmovemenn the raised sections and grooves o f each preceding pair of belts being of 15 greater Width -than the raised sections and grooves of l'each :succeeding Apair -of belts, so that the series of -pairs of belts forms a decreasing size gradient with respect to lthe Widths `of .the Lraised `sections and grooves, of their 'Width of the raised`r sections, the series constitutes a 10 lprogressive fiber subdivider.

-ReferencesfCited Ain the le of this l:patent UNITED JSTATES PATENTS 1,056,137 Wenning.. l ..,.v.y.. Mar. 18, 1913 2,591,866 Pope Apr. 8, 1952 FOREIGN PATENTS 

